"Kimble County is located in southwest central Texas on the Edwards Plateau, bordered on the north by Menard County, on the east by Mason and Gillespie counties, on the south by Kerr and Edwards counties, and on the west by Sutton County. The county, which was named for Alamo defender George C. Kimble, [alternately spelled Kimbell or Kimball] contains 1,274 square miles of broken, rolling plains with an altitude ranging from 1,400 to 2,400 feet above sea level."The Kimble County area was first mentioned in Republic of Texas documents in 1842, when 416,000 acres of the present county were included in the Fisher-Miller Land Grant, which extended from the Llano River to the Colorado River. Apparently no one settled under the grant's auspices."On January 22, 1858, Kimble County was formed by the Texas legislature from lands formerly assigned to Bexar County and was attached to Gillespie County for judicial purposes."On September 6, 1875, Kimble County was separated from Gillespie County and attached to Menard County for judicial purposes. On January 3 of the following year Kimble County was organized ..."In the spring of 1876 the towns of Kimbleville and Junction were founded, and Kimbleville was elected the first county seat. Following the first district court session, Junction became the county seat. Kimbleville, located a few miles northwest of Junction in a flood-prone area, soon disappeared."Nolan Thompson, "KIMBLE COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online

I visited Kimble County and photographed the courthouse in Junction on July 28, 2010.

Kimble County Courthouse 1885

Photograph courtesy THC.

The 1885 Kimble County courthouse in Junction was designed by the San Antonio architect Alfred Giles. Born in England in 1853, Giles arrived in San Antonio in 1875 and eventually established an architectural practice, after working for a local contractor, from whom Giles learned to construct buildings with locally available materials, especially stone.The Kimble County courthouse was a simple, yet elegant 2 story structure, square in plan, with four identical facades. Constructed of native stone, the building was similar to other modest courthouses constructed in this part of Texas over the next few decades. Compare this courthouse to those in Concho County, Edwards County, and Real County. Unfortunately, the 1885 courthouse did not survive the construction of a new, modern courthouse for Kimble County in 1929.

Kimble County Courthouse 1929

Image courtesy courthousehistory.com

San Antonio architect Henry T. Phelps was responsible for the current Kimble County courthouse. The 2 story building is in the Art Deco or Moderne style, popular at the time. Phelps designed 15 Texas courthouses during his career. The Kimble County building was one of the last of his courthouse designs. His earlier courthouses were of a more conservative, neo-classical design.The Kimble County design relies on a contemporary rendering of the traditional classical layout: a main axis across the narrow dimension of the buiding, bisected by a cross axis. The classical columns on the front portico are now simple, abstract pilasters with blocky, sloping capital-like elements. Phelps has simplified his architectural vocabulary to suit the times and, perhaps the budgets of 1929.